Claude Monet

1840 - 1926

Water Lilies, 1914

Oil on canvas

Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art

Claude Oscar Monet was born on November 14, 1840, in Paris, France. During his childhood, he lived in Le Havre, France. In 1847, his mother, Louise Monet, died. During his teenage years he learned to draw caricatures. Later, Monet’s friend, Eugène Boudin, suggested that Monet paint outdoors. A year later, Monet became a professional painter in 1859. After 1860, Monet abandoned dark colors in favor of pastel colors. During the 1860s, Monet painted with Manet, a major role model for Monet.

Monet’s Early Life

The Red Road Near Menton, 1884Oil on canvasPrivate collection

In 1865 Monet submitted his first painting to the Salon: Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe (The Picnic).

Monet’s first son, Jean, was born in 1867 and three years later Monet married Jean’s mother, Camille Doncieux. That year, the Monets fled from the Franco-Prussian War to London.

Monet’s painting, Impression: Sunrise, was exhibited at the first Impressionist gallery at Nadar in 1874.

Michel Monet was born in 1878. A year later, Camille Monet died.

In 1890 Monet bought his house at Giverny and campaigns to aid Manet’s widow by buying her husband’s painting, Olympia For The Nation.

Impression: Sunrise, 1872Oil on canvas Musee Marmottan, Paris

By 1900, Claude Monet’s vision was clouded by cataracts. This year, he paints The Japanese Bridge.

From 1916 to his death in 1926, Monet painted Water Lilies on twelve canvases. He donated them to France after the signing of the Armistice.

In 1923, Monet had his cataracts operated on. His sight improves much.

Monet gets lung cancer and dies in 1926. He is buried at Giverny.

Monet and Impressionism-Monet was an Impressionist painter. The term “impressionism” came from one

of Monet’s early paintings called Impression: Sunrise. In Monet’s paintings, he uses oil on canvas.

- Impressionism is a style that focuses mainly on the “impression” that a scene or an object in a painting gives. Paint is applied with small strokes to give the feeling of reflected light.

- Impressionism involves using colors to define shapes instead of lines. Monet believed that the use of colors was more important than the actual colors he used.

- Monet, like most impressionists, rarely used pure black. Instead he combined colors to give the appearance of black, like mixing blue, green, and red.

- Other main impressionists include Edouard Manet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisely, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, and Camille Pissarro.

- After Monet died, his friend Georges Clemenceau would not allow a traditional black pall over Monet’s coffin. He replaced it with a flowered sheet.

La Promenade, 1875Oil on canvasNational Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.

Monet’sStyleThe Bulbfield and Windmill Near Leyden, 1886Oil on canvasState Museum, Amsterdam

Essai De Figure En Plein Air (Vers La Gauche), 1886Oil on canvas

Musée d’Orsay, Paris

Monet mainly painted with oil on canvas. In the following

paintings, Monet was interested in painting people in an

outdoor setting, and painted a series of pictures of his wife,

Camille, with a parasol.

Monet once said, "I'm working like never and at new attempts,

figures in the open air as I understand them, made like

landscapes. It is an old ream that still worries me and that I

want to fulfill once and for all; but it is hard!“

In the following paintings, you can see how Monet’s style

changed somewhat from La Promenade to Essai de Figure en

Plein Air. In the first, there is more detail and the face is more

distinguished. In the second, the brush strokes are more rigid

and the face is shaded, but the features are not distinct. This

may be due somewhat to Monet’s deteriorating eyesight.

Monet focused his paintings mainly on outdoor themes. His friend, Eugène

Boudin, suggested that he paint outside.

Monet also painted his family often. He had a special affinity for painting his wife with parasols. He also painted his sons,

Jean and Michel.

Monet, as part of the Impressionist movement, made light an important

aspect of his artwork.Terrasse à Sainte-Adresse, 1867Oil on canvasMetropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Fisherman's Cottage on the Cliffs at Varengeville, 1882Oil on canvas. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Monet’s belief was that you should paint what you see, not what you

believe you should see.

Resources

http://artchive.com/artchive/M/monet/parasol.jpg.html

Intermonet. 14 May 2003 <http://www.intermonet.com>.

http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/glo/impressionism/

http://www.artcyclopedia.com/history/impressionism.html

http://www.art-and-artist.co.uk/impressionist/monet-dates.ht

http://www.artelino.com/articles/claude_monet.asp